POLICE QUOTA LAWSUIT FILED

William B. Crawford Jr. and Patrick ReardonCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Already under siege by the Reagan administration, Chicago`s hiring quotas to improve minority representation on the police department were attacked Wednesday in a lawsuit charging that the quotas discriminate against women and white men.

The suit was filed on behalf of 32 white men, two white women and one black woman who took the 1981 police test but have not been hired.

They contend that the 1981 hiring list is being discarded because there are no longer any black or Hispanic men on the list to permit city officials to meet quotas approved by U.S. District Judge Prentice Marshall.

A new police test is to be given in June to develop a new hiring list, according attorney Patrick Murphy, who filed the lawsuit.

The 35 police applicants are asking Marshall to declare the quotas unconstitutional and to require the police department to continue hiring from the 1981 list.

Their lawsuit comes two days after the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department filed a motion in Indianapolis attempting to overturn hiring quotas for the Indianapolis police and fire departments.

That motion represented the first time the government had initiated legal action to rescind court-imposed quotas. However, it came at the end of more than four months of attempts by federal officials to convince more than 40 states, counties and cities--including Chicago--to request the elimination of such quotas.

Justice Department officials have warned that they will act on their own, as they did in Indianapolis, if local governments do not agree to join in seeking to overturn their hiring and promotion quotas.

Chicago officials expect the Justice Department to follow through with that threat in a move against the hiring and promotion quotas for the city`s police and fire departments, and they have vowed to fight it.

The Justice Department has been moving to overturn such quotas--most of which were imposed in the 1970s at its urging--because of an interpretation of a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court decision in a case involving Memphis firefighters.

Under that interpretation, all quotas are illegal unless they are established to aid the actual victims of previous discrimination.

Murphy cited the Memphis case in his lawsuit on behalf of the Chicago police applicants.

Potentially more important, Murphy said, is a case the U.S. Supreme Court has recently agreed to hear in which white school teachers in Detroit contend that they were victims of discrimination in promotions because of quotas.

''You should not discriminate against anyone because of color,'' Murphy said. ''My personal feeling is that the quotas have caused tremendous hard feelings. You just have to hire the best person.''

In the spring of 1981, the city submitted to Marshall a voluntary quota system to enhance the opportunities of blacks, Hispanics and women to become police officers. Under the plan, which Marshall eventually approved, the city agreed to hire 35 percent black and Hispanic-surnamed men, 34 percent white men and 31 percent women.

City officials have previously said those percentages mirrored the percentages of people who passed the test.

Murphy said passing scores on the test ranged from 86 to 113, and some of the men and women he is representing scored higher than 100.